


An Exercise in Self-Care

by Rehlia



Category: Underfell - Fandom, Undertale (Video Game), underswap
Genre: Abstract, Ambiguity, Dreams, Dreams vs. Reality, Dreamsharing, Loneliness, M/M, Makeouts, Praise Kink, Sad Ending, Self-Acceptance, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-cest, Selfcest, Sensitive bones, Suggestive Themes, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 14:33:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14191095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehlia/pseuds/Rehlia
Summary: Edge doesn't like to sleep because his dreams are weird. The one he has tonight, where he meets a skeleton with a softer version of his own face who tells him kind and gentle things about himself, has to be his strangest one yet.





	An Exercise in Self-Care

**Author's Note:**

> The final entry in my easter weekend oviposition collection. Although honestly this is oviposition only in the broadest definition of the word. It got a lot more abstract than I thought it would, and a lot less smutty, but I'm actually pretty happy with the result. 
> 
> This is my first foray into spicyhoney, so I hope that came out okay :D

When Papyrus blinked his sockets open, he found himself standing among stars, and immediately knew he was dreaming. 

He had a tendency to get weird dreams whenever he lied down to sleep, which was part of the reason why he didn’t like to lie down and sleep. The other reasons were fears about being ambushed, having to deal with an increase in his level, or simply the relentless, burning energy that ran like crackling electricity through his bones at all times of his life, the kind of energy that left him jittery enough to need a full day of running and fighting and working out to calm down even enough to simply sit on a sofa for the half hour it took to watch a new Mettaton show with his brother. 

Sometimes he felt so wound up that he couldn’t even think about sleeping for several days, times where he would keep going and going without thought until he crashed hard. Other times he would deny himself on purpose for all the reasons he hated to sleep, and crash just as hard but with a sense of satisfaction at having staved off the inevitable for so long, having braced himself for what was to follow. 

He ultimately never was quite as braced as he wanted to be. 

Sometimes his dreams were fast and violent in their strangeness, and despite the fact that they left him out of breath and with a sharp pain in his throat, he almost preferred them to the alternatives. Dreams of power, dreams of glamour, dreams of loss, and always of loneliness and a pain going deeper than the physical. 

In comparison, this one was almost too peaceful. 

Nothing but a vast darkness speckled with twinkling dots of light, spiral galaxies and nebulas in the distance, vast planets and moons looming not too far from him, spinning slowly on their own axis. It reminded him of pictures and scenes he had seen in the books and documentaries his brother had loved before his interest in the sciences had waned for inexplicable reasons, only recreated in three dimensions and on a much grander scale. 

A cosmic beauty that he was unequipped to truly appreciate. 

It made him feel too small and too vulnerable, out here in the open in the universe. There was nothing above or beneath him, nothing to hold him or stop him from falling down or up. No shadows, corners or alcoves to hide in, no walls to press his back against to protect himself from ambushes. 

“Wake up,” he told himself. “You’re dreaming. You will wake up now.” 

“Hello?”

Edge startled, badly. 

There were people in his dreams often, and sometimes they would speak, but it was always a blur, never something so clear as this. He would dream of random mumbles and sounds that his sleeping mind then translated into words he understood, or he would dream up a summary where he would feel as though he had the whole conversation despite the fact that his dreams only showed him the end result of it. To hear clear, comprehensible speech in a familiar voice felt off, more so than the way his dreams usually felt off. He immediately drew up his shoulders and widened his stance, easily falling into the limber way of moving he used every time he got into a fight. 

“Who’s there,” he snarled. 

“Whoa, relax dude. Just me,” someone said behind him. 

Edge swirled around, magic burning between his fingers and already forming into sharpened bone spears, only to be met with a mirror image of himself. 

He froze, and so did the skeleton in front of him. 

For the space of several short breaths, they both took each other in. 

They weren’t _quite_ mirror images of each other. The general template was the same; long and sturdy limbs that nevertheless remained firmly on the slender side, with big hands and feet to go with them, an equally long face with a small cranium and a strong jaw, ever so slightly mismatched eye sockets. The differences were in the details. Papyrus knew his own face was sharper, his sockets drawn together in a near-permanent frown, his teeth sharp and jagged instead of the blunt and even row he saw in the other. He could also see clearly that the skeleton opposite him lacked the multitude of scars, nicks and scratches that covered his own bones. 

“Wow, this is weird,” the other said.

“Who are you?” Papyrus demanded to know. 

“Papyrus,” the other said. 

“No. I’m Papyrus,” Papyrus insisted. “We can’t both be Papyrus.”

“I could call you edgelord,” the other grinned, an expression that combined laziness and amusement into something absolutely infuriating. 

“You will do no such thing!” 

“Edge. C’mon, it’s fitting,” the other insisted. 

“I am not giving up my name,” Papyrus growled.

“How about you give me a nickname too?” the other suggested with a shrug, that annoying grin still on his skull. “Then it’s fair, right?” 

It did sound fair. Papyrus still didn’t like it, but since he had himself insisted that they couldn’t both be Papyrus, it seemed that compromising was in order if he wanted the other to go along with his demands. 

“Stretch,” he eventually decided, after having taken the other in again. Without any scars puckering up the bones to give some texture and variation, the other Papyrus’ body looked oddly long. 

“Heh. Suppose that’s fair,” Stretch said. Then he held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Edge.”

Edge eyed the hand with suspicion before clasping it. 

“Is there any point to this? We are the same person,” he pointed out. 

“Are we?” Stretch asked. Edge couldn’t quite figure out if it was a rhetorical question. 

“What else would we be?” Edge asked back. 

Stretch merely shrugged. 

“I’ve never dreamt of myself before,” he said after a moment of looking at the stars surrounding the two of them. 

“Neither have I,” Edge admitted. 

“Do you think it says something about our psyche that we’re naked?” Stretch continued. 

“Nudity in dreams is often a symbol of humiliation, vulnerability or honesty,” Edge explained. 

“You know how to interpret dreams?” Stretch asked with visible surprise, drawing a brow bone up as his gaze fell back on Edge. 

“No, I’m speaking based on my own experience,” Edge remarked. 

For some reason, that made Stretch snort and then laugh. 

“You’re straightforward,” Stretch remarked, in a tone that suggested more that he found Edge hilarious. 

“You’re random,” Edge shot back. 

“Probably,” Stretch shrugged, seemingly unbothered. “But hey, I meant that as a compliment. It’s honest, you know? It’s cool.”

“There’s nothing special about honesty,” Edge mumbled. He felt flustered despite Stretch’s insistence that he was complimenting Edge. “It’s useful in some situations and a hindrance in others.”

“I suppose. But it also means you have integrity,” Stretch pointed out. 

“What’s your angle, why are you complimenting me,” Edge demanded to know. 

“You looked like you needed it somehow.” 

Edge would have snapped at him, were it not for the way the other held himself. A posture he knew all too well from himself, the way shoulders were squared to prevent them from drawing up, the way sockets looked to the side while truly looking inside, the little aborted twitches that betrayed a desire to escape the situation, to jump out of the nearest window and run. Edge had spoken out of experience earlier, and now it was the other who was doing it. 

He didn’t know why he did it. 

It wasn’t in his nature and it was something he hadn’t done in years, decades really, but for some reason this unscarred, soft version of himself made it so easy to do. 

Edge reached out and found the other’s hands, and when he met no resistance apart from a surprised look he pulled the other into a hug. It made him shudder, he wasn’t very used to such intimate, gentle contact. 

“What are you doing?” Stretch asked. 

“I think that should be obvious,” Edge said. 

“It’s just, uh…” It seemed as though Stretch didn’t have any words left. For some reason, Edge had the impression that this wasn’t something that happened often. 

“I envy that you don’t have any scars,” Edge said, running his phalanges gently over Stretch’s back, taking care not to catch on the ribs with his filed claws. “You feel smooth. Soft. As if you never fought.”

“I haven’t,” Stretch replied, sounding deeply confused. His hands came up more slowly than Edge’s had, but when they did they felt warm on Edge’s shoulder blades. “But - “

“Shut up and learn to take a compliment.” 

Edge could both hear and feel the giggle, soft puffs of breath against his vertebrae. 

“You don’t do this a lot, do you,” Stretch snickered. 

“Stop laughing.” Edge didn’t need to feel embarrassed right now, when he was for once trying to do something nice. He would have thought that dreams would offer a safe place to do so. 

“Sorry. But I like your scars too. They look badass,” Stretch continued. 

“They’re not.”

“Shut up and learn to take a compliment,” Stretch repeated back at him mirthfully. 

“They’re all the times I failed to keep things peaceful,” Edge hissed. “All the times someone tried to dust me, only for me to strike back in retaliation. Some of them are reminders of the monsters I dusted. The levels of violence I’ve gained.”

He stopped himself short of cursing those levels of violence; in the kind of world he lived in, having killed meant power and power meant survival and protection. He couldn’t bring himself to hate that, not when it meant being able to fight his way through another day, not when it meant being able to protect his brother. 

Even in a dream, even being honest in ways he’d never be while awake, he wouldn’t go that far. 

“You’re more than that,” Stretch told him, sounding very gentle now, all hints of amusement gone. 

“I’m a killer,” Edge insisted, because it was true. 

“But that’s not all. You have an older brother, right?”

Strange that his own mirror image would have to ask. But then again, they were not quite alike. 

“Yes,” Edge confirmed. 

“Then you’re also a brother,” Stretch told him, and Edge felt something warm nestle inside his ribcage. 

When he looked down, drawing back only enough to be able to see his own ribcage, he could see a small, round light sitting right next to his soul. It was bright and beautiful, flares of light leaking outwards from the centre like the arms of a galaxy. 

“You love him,” Stretch stated. That was not a question, merely taking notice of a fact. 

“I do,” Edge said, thinking of Sans, of memories of when the two of them were smaller, when his brother had been bigger than him and held him when he cried, and then he recalled more recent situations, carrying his brother home from Grillby’s and holding him gently in his own long arms. The closest to a hug he ever got these days.

Another bright light bloomed to life in his ribcage, close to the other. 

“Then you can love,” Stretch said. “Do you like puzzles?” 

“Of course.” 

Edge didn’t understand. He saw and felt another light come to life, this one surrounded by a colourful nebula, a cloud of darkest blue and faintest green. He recalled the time when his brother had explained the phenomenon to him, and the star that had appeared in his ribcage when he thought of his brother began to shine brighter, leaking stardust between his ribs. 

“And I’m sure you enjoy japes…”

Stretch was relentless. He kept listing all the things that made up a part of Edge and his life, from his relationships to his hobbies and interests to his most secret dreams. 

Training and cooking with Undyne, how she had his back and he hers in spite of how often their sparring sessions went brutal. The canine unit and their loyalty, which he tried to return out of sheer gratitude. His fickle understanding with Grillby that Sans was not to be harmed. Every time when he was a child and a stranger had shown him mercy instead of deciding that kill or be killed could apply to the little ones as well, and how it had informed his own handling of the youthful monsters in Snowdin town. His pride in his abilities and his desire to build others up as well, to pull them up to his level, which so often came out as harsh criticism when it was meant to be supportive. His dreams of working his way up in the guard and establishing order and safety in the underground. His appreciation of Mettaton, his love of cars, how hard he worked, his cunning and persistence, his dreams that one day they would all get out of the mountain they were trapped under and defend their new life on the surface, and his own willingness to play a part in that effort. 

Stretch didn’t guess all of these correctly immediately. Some surprised him, which told Edge that in several ways, the differences between them went deeper than their appearances. 

But he did get them eventually and with every facet that Stretch named, another star came to life in Edge’s ribcage, until he grew heavy and heated, pregnant with potential and possibility. 

“I can’t take anymore,” Edge eventually whispered, out of breath from being so filled. His whole ribcage was stuffed to the brim, set alight by so many bright spots of light within that he felt as if he was about to turn into a star himself, as if one more word would transform his bones and he’d spiral outwards as a galaxy. 

“Do you feel better?” Stretch asked, running his phalanges over Edge’s skull from the front to the back. He wasn’t aware when Stretch had started caressing him like this, but he didn’t really want the other to stop. 

“I do,” Edge confirmed. 

“Good.” 

“What about you?” 

“Hey, I already know I’m great. The great Papyrus,” Stretch said, entirely too casually. The joking undertone had snuck back in, giving the statement a more sarcastic quality. 

Edge couldn’t let that stand. 

“You are,” he whispered, drawing the other closer until their bones began to intermingle, individual ribs hooking into the gaps between the ribs of the opposite. 

Stretch twitched, almost flinched, and said nothing. 

“You’re me. Why do you see all these good things in me but not in yourself?” Edge asked. He was deliberately seeking out all the secret, hidden spots that were sensitive on his own body, scratching the underside of the tip of a shoulder blade, petting the outer curve of the ribs on the way downwards, teasing the point where the iliac crest met the spine. 

A faint, quiet moan resonated in the silence of the universe they were floating in, a sound so soft and vulnerable that it made something in Edge’s soul clench that he hadn’t known could be there. 

Heat rose in him, fuelled by this new sensation in his soul and seemingly also by the stars that still sat heavy in his ribcage, travelling through his bones to concentrate on the points where their bodies were touching. He suddenly felt desperate to be even closer to his mirror image, to draw the other in and pour all the gentleness and desire onto him that his world so often condemned, to make love to Stretch languidly and extensively until they both saw stars for reasons other than their surroundings. 

He reached down to Stretch’s sacrum, wanting to tease the holes there, and turned his head to nuzzle the other only to find Stretch already looking at him, meeting his own gaze with an intensity that betrayed that they were both thinking along the same lines. 

When their foreheads met and and they leaned in to nuzzle, the desire in Edge reached a point of frantic desperation, the heat that had been rising in him transforming into fire. The stars in his chest seemed to vibrate and sing, bursting into supernovas that choked him for a moment as his ribcage became too small to contain the expansion going on within. 

He was _burning_...

Until he was not. 

It was dark, and quiet, and cool, the temperature feeling uncomfortable on his heated bones. 

Edge blinked in confusion, sitting up rapidly and looking around. All he saw was his room, the faint outlines of his furniture and sparse personal belongings barely visible in the dim half-light falling through the drawn curtains of his window. 

Of course. 

He had been dreaming. 

How could he have forgotten that he was dreaming? That wasn’t like him. 

A shudder ran through him at the thought. He still felt uncomfortably aroused, and he didn’t even want to think about what it said about him that he dreamt about a soft, scarless version of him that told him nice things about himself until he wanted to fuck it. More than that though, he could feel the remnants of moisture cling to the corners of his eye sockets, and his ribcage felt strangely empty, bereft of the warm stars he had been carrying in there. There was also a sense of regret, that he ultimately hadn’t been able to fill is other version with stars of his own. He had wanted to reciprocate, to give the other the same sensation of being so filled by all the things about himself that might be worthwhile. There was loneliness, now that he found himself without the company of this other version of him. A sense of bittersweet longing when he thought of Stretch’s face, his vulnerability and the way that unmarred body had felt underneath his phalanges. He felt a lot of things, and none of them were acceptable things to feel. 

With an angry growl, he wiped the moisture away from his sockets. This was exactly why he hated sleeping. His dreams were too strange. This one was his strangest one yet and look at the mess it left him in. 

Without stalling further, he threw back his comforter and stood up, allowing the cold morning air of his room to shock him further into wakefulness. No time to lose over dreams, a new day was ahead of him and he had to make sure it was a productive one, one that further ensured the continued survival and comfort of his brother and himself. 

That was all he could and would be focused on. 

He pretended not to linger on the sight of his own bones as he got dressed.


End file.
